


It Took This Long For Me To Tell You

by Hawkbringer



Series: Stampede of Millions Orphanage AU [8]
Category: Trigun
Genre: Abrupt Ending, Arguing, Biblical Allusions (Abrahamic Religions), Curtain Fic, Declarations Of Love, Domestic, Ends before the slash happens, Family Dinners, Fluff and Angst, Knives has rage issues, Knives' casual ethnocenterism, M/M, Men Crying, Mental Link, Multi, OOC Knives, Philosophy, Post-Anime, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Telepathic Bond, Wolfwood is alive somehow dont worry about it, brief reference to cannibalism, homesteading in the desert, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: During yet another dinner argument about philosophy, Vash learns that Knives has loved him all along, and begins to allow himself to hope. Knives always pictured his Eden with Vash at his side, and since the apple trees grow so well here, why would they want to plant anything else?
Relationships: Millions Knives & Vash the Stampede, Millions Knives/Vash the Stampede, Vash the Stampede & Nicholas D. Wolfwood
Series: Stampede of Millions Orphanage AU [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1434997
Kudos: 11





	It Took This Long For Me To Tell You

Vash uncharacteristically keeps his silence until partway through 'family dinner' at the Stampede of Millions Farm-Orphanage-Ranch that evening when, despite the general gregarious and subtly needling sibling-talk that Milly has managed to draw from some depth of Knives' heart of hearts, Milly finishes chewing a bite at one point and says, "You and Mr. Vash aren't talking, Mr. Knives. How come?" Clearly anticipating an answer, she takes another bite and stares at Knives in such a way that avoiding her request seems to be nearly impossible. 

Meryl lowers her fork and Wolfwood, having eaten quickly as always, glances at Knives sharply. That insensible man is so protective of his brother (Vash), it irritates him (Knives) greatly. But his brother is equally protective of these fragile little fleshy ants, and the only way out of answering is to leave the table abruptly, which would not endear Vash to him at all. He has tried that method before and disliked the results…

Knives sighs, defeated by all the tiny hoops Vash has set for him - so /ridiculously/ pointless, but... He has to play this game. He has been alone for far too long... And his brother belongs at his side. 

Even if... Even if, these days, it seems more like Vash believes Knives belongs at /his/ side. And the reversal has been slowly wearing him down, he cannot avoid that truth. 

So he sighs. He sighs because he has nowhere else to be, and the food /is/ good, and the humans' voices aren't /too/ grating, and if their twin angel-guns /had/ to be disassembled in such a way that Knives was not /allowed/ to put them back together... This is a lovely place. A fitting Eden. 

It was Milly who protested that name, back when Knives had so facetiously suggested it. 

He appreciates her forethought now. Any beautiful place crawling with squalling larval humans could be no Eden to him. But it is...becoming...a home. 

He sighs harshly a second time and pushes his chair back on two legs, arms crossed over his chest. 

"Vash is thinking," he replies shortly, the pure, unvarnished truth, but not very informative. He is learning how to use phrases like these to deflect all the attention that falls on him sometimes during dinners like these. 

It works marvelously. 

Everyone immediately glances to Vash, who did /not/ stop eating at Milly's comment and is now caught off guard with his mouth full of stew. Knives's smile is almost true. 

After Vash wolfs down the mouthful, he offers, "Knives said something today that I have to think about for longer than usual, that's all." He pauses, but, sensing the inevitable questions that would follow, continues, "He asked why all life was worth preserving. Why my philosohpy of 'live and let live' makes more sense than his of 'kill to protect.' I'm trying to think of why." 

"It's not exactly that," Knives jumps in, not mentally, because when Vash cut him off, he always had to wait until /Vash/ reinitiated that line of communication. "It's not protect. It's prevent. /Yours/ is about protect. Protect what already exists, regardless of whether it makes sense to or not. Mine is about preventing infection, which entails a judgment call on which species, exactly, is the one worth saving. You seem to think you can have it all, indefinitely." 

Vash puts down his fork at that. The clatter frightens the humans at the table, though none of them, except perhaps Milly, would have admitted it. "I know I can't," he whispers. 

"Whassat?" Wolfwood asks instinctually, having not quite heard. He bites his tongue a moment later, watching Vash's downcast eyes flick up with a sort of infinite sorrow in them. 

"I know I can't have this, forever. Some horrible calamity is gonna befall this beautiful place. The Nebraska Family could show up, the Plants might decide to shut down tomorrow. Heck, the planet might be invaded by colonists from /another/ world! Let alone the more mundane concerns about bandits... but Ellie tells me you two have been handling those stunningly on your own." Again he smiles, eyes still empty, at Meryl and Milly, to which both of them smile half-heartedly back. Knives, however, is non-plussed. 

"So you're perfectly aware this all is..." he waves a hand around to indicate the entirety of Stampede of Millions Ranch, Farm, and Orphanage, "is going to end in flames?" Vash flinches slightly. 

"Not /flames/, necessarily... but, at the very least, end." He looks away, face tormented. "It's not very good dinner conversation to contemplate our individual demises. That's why we keep busy! Right, Milly!" Brightening considerably over the course of those two sentences, Vash turns his forced-on smile to Milly, who leaps at the opportunity to 'keep busy' as Vash had said and nods quickly. 

"Mm-hmm! Speaking of keeping busy, Mr. Vash," she segues without missing a beat, "You've got to see it to believe it, how good Austin is getting to be in the kitchen! I think he's cut out to run a fancy restaurant in the city when he's older, and you know I don't say that about just anybody!" 

It's true - since acquiring the orphanage, or, building it, rather, Milly has reconnected with her working-ranch-girl roots and gotten very picky about home-made food. She's always as encouraging as possible to any of the kids who want to try, once they're of a certain age, but some of them have the gift, to be sure, and Milly is the one who can spot it. 

Meryl's better at telling if a kid has the gift for reading or not. Oh, sure, they try to teach all the kids reading if they can, but one of their older kids, a more recent addition as well, is a budding woodsmith, a real dab hand at lathing beautiful, collection-worthy pieces. They argued with Meryl about the merits of report-writing when it would be more important to them to be able to read Legalese, (which, of course, had survived the trip from Earth. Nothing can kill Legalese. Not even Knives) and to focus on sums, for starting their own business. Meryl was also the best in the house at sums, so that is what they focused on while Alex was in their care. 

The kid was, predictably, picked up by a patron from May City, after Vash had made the rounds to donors one year and mentioned the prodigy. Alex is one of their great success stories, but, of course, they get more letters from the patron than the artist, as the artist does not like to write. 

There are some beautiful, functional pieces scattered throughout the house, however, and some of these are worth their weight in gold. That's partly why they worry about robbers, if word were to get around from the galleries of May City.

Acceptable dinner conversation, as Vash would term it, continues in this vein, and Knives learns more every night about brats he would just as likely have squashed underfoot as turned into a brainwashed servant, one at least aware that he had no individual mind. The insistence of these people on fostering individuality is maddening. 

/Why,/ he wants to scream to Vash in his mind, knowing he has to wait, even if the thought does cross the distance, for Vash to speak to him first. /Why even bother with any of it when their lives are so short, their relationships so meaningless, their desires so puny?/ 

Vash attempts to reply with the mental image of a civilization reaching back aeons, and forward into the distant future, as well. The complex image doesn't make the leap, as some things don't, but they both can sense when the attempt has been made. /They are striving for stability, for their children, and their children's children. Predictability. Peace. Thriving. Strong-and-reaching. Happy./ 

Several concepts filter in past Knives' mental anguish and he recognizes them as coming from Vash's mind. /That still doesn't answer my question,/ he presses upon Vash's mind. /Why yours and not mine? Why is yours the right one? You're no different from me./ 

Again, the sense of instinctive rebellion from a part of Vash's brain not wholly reasoned, a shout of, essentially, /Wrong!!/ but then nothing beyond the initial hurt flinch. 

He waits, finishing his digestif, (aperitif is pre-meal, right?) and as he puts down the thin, hardy, flute (hardy of necessity, being around so many children), Vash's mind gives him an answer. 

/Life is /worth/ living. If it's not, we should all just die right now. And there's something just /wrong/ about an empty universe. One with no life at all. No songs, no breathing, no birds chirping. No striving. A universe without life is just balls of rocks and gases, spinning endlessly outward and onward, and for what? Just because they can? We do what we do because it makes us happy. And that, at least, is a universal good./ 

/Free from pain?/ Knives asks to clarify, because there have been times when he was in more pain and times when he was in less pain, but happiness and universal good are terms beyond his kenning. 

/More than that,/ Vash responds immediately, sitting back in his seat and contemplating the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach and a forced smile on his face for the others. 

Knives does not look too closely at how grateful he is to Vash for speaking to his mind so soon. He was, truly, expecting /days/. Expecting days he would not enjoy. And maybe therein is part of the answer. 

/To be actively happy, not just not-sad. To love a thing, a person, and smile when it succeeds and to weep when it dies. To just look at it, at them, at /him/,/ and Knives suddenly knows it is Wolfwood's improbable return that Vash is picturing, /and just be so glad that they are /alive/. That they are part of your /existence./ That they share the planet /with/ you./ 

Vash risks a glance at Knives, who is staring intently at Vash's face and so does not miss the eyes' flick. /I can't say I'm entirely happy about sharing the planet with /you/./ 

Rage clouds Knives' vision and he sets his chair back on two legs, staring down at his plate to keep the girls, the humans, the... the /family,/ from seeing his murderous expression. Vash doesn't like it when he upsets them. 

/You think you're better off without me?/ he spits mentally, in a manner that does not conceal his cracked certainty that Vash would always be by his side. Even the years spent apart were spent, on Knives' part, ensuring Vash would never have another reason to leave him, ever again. (Knives is like a cat - he gives you murder-presents and expects you to love him for it.) 

Vash too drops his gaze, trying to engage Knives' rage-filled ones guiltily. /Nnn...no. Not at this point. I just... I just wish you /hated/ everything less. I wish you /loved/ something. Then I think I could understand you a little better./ Knives' brain brings to Vash's mind immediately a picture of the Plants he so fretted over earlier and Vash smiles thinly. /That's a little different. You don't know the /individual/ sisters inside those plants, nor do you want to..../ He trails off to see if Knives will contradict him. Knives makes a considering face, then shrugs with his eyebrows, conceding the point. /Right. So you don't love them. You might, appreciate their efforts, but... You don't love them anymore than you loved your minions. The Gung-Ho Guns that you killed for their unwavering loyalty. Did any of them /wish/ to die?/ Vash ends on a bittersweet note. /Even if they did, I just... I hate to see it. I hate it. Because so many were killed and didn't want it. You killed. So many. All those empty cities.../ 

/None of /them/ died in vain. Remember what you said about the pygmy-thomas eggs? I.../ he trails off, not sure if Vash will find what he has to say at all helpful or not. /I absorbed them. Their energies. Into myself and the Plants at Owari no Sekai. It wasn't...wasted, at least./ 

A shudder of instinctive revulsion creeps into Knives' mind from Vash's and he sends Vash a very powerful image of Knives pounding the table and shouting, "I knew it!" /I knew you wouldn't like me telling you!/ he continues mentally after the image plays out in Vash's mind. 

/You're right, I /don't/ like it, but... I'm glad you did it. Honesty, after all, is the best policy and all that. And I can sense it. You.../ Here, Vash paused, unsure of what /he/ was about to say. /You... /wanted/ me, to think their deaths weren't in vain. Not... wasted.../ 

/Well, duh,/ Knives shot back immediately, not even having to think to formulate his mental reply. The other humans at the table, especially Wolfwood, were impressed with the amount of intelligible conversation that could take place solely via eyebrow manipulation. /I don't want you to think I'm a monster. We are the superior breed, Vash. You shouldn't think ill of yourself, or me./ 

He blinks once, realizing something. /You know, I wanted to remake the world /for you/./ 

If Vash had been holding his fork, he would have dropped it. 

/I wanted.... to make a paradise for you. The Recreation Room was beautiful, you know. I felt it too. A...love for the place. I wanted it. I wanted to live there, with you. In a place with no stealing, no wars, no hate... where Plants could live as Plants. Is that so wrong?/ 

He looks up at Vash's face, aware that he has quoted Vash's personal goddess and might be in for some type of punishment for profaning Her words, but... He had heard those words too, in childhood. Memorized them well enough to recite them right alongside Vash and that woman. Of course he wanted peace! Of course he hated war and strife and panic and chaos. It was just all so much quieter when everyone was /dead/. At least he wasn't going around trying to change everybody's minds. Much more direct approach, to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

And he'd never known what he was missing, because the Eden remained a memory, his small attempt at it destroyed horrendously when Vash brought him to heel (he /is/ feeling like a tamed dog more and more these days, so the metaphor is apt), /to heal/, and this place, he is just as protective of it, just as irritated when the children attempt to carve things into the tree's trunks, when they strip branches off low-hanging limbs. Little heathens. Their laughter is not a balm to him, however, because they laugh when they push their playmates and when they hug them, as though unaware of the difference between harm and... He supposes Vash would call it love. Love and Peace, isn't that right? They /cannot/ do no harm, and thus must be destroyed, like any infestation with no reasoning ability and a wholly illogical predilection for destroying the environment that supports it.

/You love... the beauty of this place?/ 

/I do,/ Knives responds immediately. 

/And you love...me?/ Vash's mental voice sounds nearly incredulous, which is exactly how Knives feels as his head snaps up. His jaw even starts to drop and Meryl, if no one else, senses the explosive turn the conversation that they are only witnessing is about to take, and so makes a loud and not-even-remotely-subtle call to the other humans to take care of dishes and such like. 

When Milly, looking at Knives, opens her mouth to ask if he is finished, Meryl cuts her off, telling her to just leave it. All three of them do the dishes hurriedly, not breaking anything because none of it is breakable, not because of any tact in handling. All three of them then swiftly find other things to do and the dining room is left empty, Vash and Knives' half-eaten dinners still before them.

/You doubted.../ Knives begins incredulously. 

/I was sure,/ Vash retorts immediately, /that you /hated/ me, because you killed the woman I loved. Hell, you killed the crew and they were like family to us! To me, at least! I thought you knew no love, if you killed the people who /raised/ us!/

/I told you at the time, I wanted better for you!/ Knives hisses back, bringing up the memory of what he'd said about Rem as the ship containing her burned to nothing but cinders. 

/I didn't /want/ better!/ Vash shouts back into his brother's head, tears starting to gather in his eyes. /I wanted what I had! More of what I had! More time with Rem, more time with you, in the Recreation Room, with her song surrounding us and echoing.../ He breaks off, though he doesn't need to, to try and calm his hitching breaths. /I wanted those good times to last forever, Knives! I knew they wouldn't, they told us, after all, that the journey would end in about 2 years, was it? Whenever it was, I knew it would change, be different, but I thought it would be /real/ then! I thought we would sit outside under the sun with those birds still chirping and those butterflies and those spiders and the grass and the trees and.../ He breaks off again, this time to wipe his now-running nose, /and I thought you and Rem and everyone would still be there! Having /worked/ to make it real! Proud and happy and... Alive! I thought, Knives, I thought so many people would be happy, once they woke up from those cold-sleep pods. That they'd see the beautiful world we'd built and be so overcome with joy, just like I was sitting on that hill, and..../ He looks down, having run out of steam in his rant about Eden, the planet they never found. /...And I thought we'd /get/ that Paradise they all wanted./ 

He doesn't look at Knives as his brother stands up and walks towards Vash, one hand outstretched. He doesn't look at Knives until his brother breaks their silent streak and says aloud, "Vash," catching his attention. 

Suspicious, but drained from bawling, Vash takes the offered hand and leaves the house with Knives. His brother walks with him deep into a grove of apple trees. They originally planted apples quite simply because they had no other seeds, and the apples have grown so well, why would they want for anything else? 

Knives stops beneath a tree out of sight from the small main house - the smallest living space on the property, despite containing 5 separate bedrooms (two of which are never used). 

He sits while still holding Vash's hand, as he has this whole time, and leans his head back against the trunk and takes a deep breath in. The night air is bracingly cool, not dangerously so, as it would be if not for the twins he and Vash rehoused here, one of their first acts of founding this new Eden. 

/Breathe with me,/ Knives entreats Vash, /let our heartbeats synchronize./ 

Breathing slowly despite the occasional hiccup from the tears, Vash does, despite some reluctance at being one again with the being who has caused him so much pain. 

It relaxes him greatly, though, being in such a place, listening to the crickets that have moved in, entirely of their own volition, the large predatory night-birds that swoop in and out of the highest trees with almost no sound but a single rustle from the leaves that could almost be the wind, except the Plants protect them from that, too... 

It is so peaceful, late enough that all the children are either actually asleep or pretending very well, or at least not flagrantly disregarding the 'no noise after dinnertime' rule. (They have made dinnertime late, and rather small, and cook breakfast in the meantime, only having to put the bread and stew over a fire briefly in the morning, with enough for large portions for all those who wish them.)

After a few utterly silent minutes sitting together at the base of that tree, Knives opens his eyes and asks his brother's mind, /Aside from the lack of sun beating down and the chirping of the birds, is this not the Paradise they sought?/ 

Vash's hand trembles in his, and Knives turns his head with a worried countenance. /What is wrong, brother? Are you cold?/ 

/No,/ Vash returns mentally with a squeeze of the hand for emphasis. /I'm not cold. I'm... awed. Transported. I... I guess I really needed to go outside just then./ He lets out a little verbal, "Heh." /I admit, I... totally forgot what we were arguing about./ 

/Do you want me to tell you?/ Knives asks, catching himself about to simply tell the other man. 

/No, I... I remember now. You were telling me that you loved this place.... or something like it. You wanted... Eden, too. With me. You wanted it with me./ Vash turns his head now and squeezes Knives' hand again. /You wanted to remake the world for me?/ he asks almost breathlessly. 

Knives squeezes back. /Of course I did. My Paradise needed you to be complete, just like yours, apparently, needed to be full of crying human infants./ 

Vash chuckles out loud, as quietly as he can manage, because that was an actual joke, and an actual nice sentiment and, amazingly, not terribly insulting to humans as a species. 

Vash chuckles for a long time, several whole minutes at least, and Knives watches his face the entire time, noticing the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, the way his neck is a different color from his cheeks, all sorts of small things that Vash never lets him look his fill of, because the Stampede is always, always moving, even now that he has settled down. At least, when he is awake. 

He is crying again when he is done laughing, but Knives doesn't even think to mock him for it. 

"Ahaha..ahahh...Thank you."

"Mm? What for?" It comes out a bit rusty, as Knives has barely spoken aloud for hours, despite the sheer volume of words that have passed between them.

"I haven't...laughed like this... at something you've said... in a hundred and thirty years!" His voice breaks a little on the last word and he tugs his knees up to his chin, perhaps because he is feeling small, perhaps because he is actually cold. 

Knives rolls onto his hip to better face Vash and raises his free hand to swipe a bit of errant hair (he's been wearing it down lately and Knives is letting his grow, but Vash's is still longer) behind one ear. Vash turns his face into the touch, his cheek filling out the hollow of Knives' palm like it was made to do so. Perhaps it was. 

"Then I'd say it's long overdue, wouldn't you?" 

"Eheh. Most definitely." Vash closes his eyes then and moves to stand. He is the one that tugs on Knives' hand this time. "Let's go back inside. I want to go to bed." 

"To sleep, or to bed?" Vash looks away from him as they start walking back, still hand-in-hand, as they have been this entire time. He doesn't respond verbally, just in case anyone, /anyone/, is listening. 

/To bed/, he affirms mentally, making Knives smile just a little at what a sneaky little fucker Vash can be when he puts his mind to it. /And you don't know the half of it,/ Vash mulls to himself, having overheard Knives' thought. He remembers for just a moment, all the times he bawled in French or screamed 'scary!!!' or laughed with drunkards over something that should not have been as funny as it was. (Jury's still out on whether he fakes drunkeness for social lubrication reasons.) 

He's had fun acting, he really has. It has helped him forget, for a time, just what was lurking in the shadows, or, more accurately, behind the mirages, out in the desert, somewhere. His other half. His hated other half, who, by his own admission, never hated /him/.

It helps. It helps so much to know that, that Vash was always /loved/ by his brother, was never in danger from him, despite how much pain his brother caused him... He had always imagined them together, at the end of it all. Or at the beginning. Knives loved Vash, and that single fact, that single tie, would have the strength to draw Knives back from the grip of the demon that possessed him. It would /have/ to have that strength. It was practically all Vash had.

But the key to lifting anything on a long and unreliable rope is to pull very, very, slowly. 

So Vash was going to start small, and simply show his brother his appreciation, his gratitude, for hearing that one fact that might redeem him. For knowing Knives was not empty of love. That they had something in common. That Vash could now dare to hope, as his heart had been aching to do since Knives woke up alone in a house of humans and human-lovers, still bed-ridden and utterly thrown for a loop. 

Closing the door to his room very quietly, Vash leads Knives by the hand to the edge of his bed, and, still standing, puts his free hand against Knives' cheek, a true smile alighting on his face in the moonlit room.

**Author's Note:**

> It's messy and unbeta'd and the italics are missing. I write everything with // and have decided not to add the HTML yet because it was so much work, it was preventing me from posting works. Thank the Great Quarantine that I have the time and energy to do this much now.
> 
> Leave a comment if you want to help me as a beta-reader/editor, or if you think of some more tags that need adding!


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